TOMS SHOES GETTING INTO EYEWEAR

TOMS SHOES GETTING INTO EYEWEAR

from the article 'Shoe company debuts eyewear for a cause'
By Ashley Archibald

http://www.smdp.com/Articles-c-2011-06-07-71957.113116-Shoe-company-debuts-eyewear-for-a-cause.html

June 08, 2011

"MAIN STREET — TOMS Shoes, a Santa Monica-based company that provides footwear to underprivileged children in foreign countries, announced Tuesday that it will expand both its product line and charity to fight another global health problem — blindness.

The company's founder and Chief Shoe Giver Blake Mycoskie unveiled the newest product, a line of designer eyewear that TOMS will use to further the "one-for-one" model it established with its shoes.

For every pair purchased, a person with vision problems will receive care that they could not afford before.

"In 2007, when we'd sold 10,000 pairs of shoes, we realized that the one-for-one model was working," Mycoskie said. "We also saw that there were many more needs that were not being met."

It didn't hurt that TOMS shoes became popular with the young, hipster set.

Four years and 1 million pairs of shoes later, Mycoskie and his band debuted three styles of designer sunglasses, with the tagline "Every Stripe Tells a Story" for the pattern built into each pair.

The sunglasses, which are made in Italy, sport three hand-painted stripes, two blue sandwiching one white."

ashley@smdp.com

MY THOUGHTS

A noble cause or a business cause?  What does it matter?  If a thriving business on beautiful shoes is able to help the less privileged, they shouldn't stop at eyewear.